Quick recap of Jennifer Holm at BYU symposium

Jenni was in Utah this weekend for the 21st BYU Symposium of Books for Young Readers. The diligent blogger SherMeree wrote a recap of all of the speakers' presentations:

Jennifer Holm (in her pink dress and mouse ears) gave credit (or blame) for the inspiration of a couple of her stories to her mother. Her mother and grandmother gave Ms. Holm the idea for Penny from Heaven (one of my favorite books.) Her mother is a pack rat and has kept tons of stuff in her basement that inspired the Middle School is Worse than Meatloaf: A Year Told through Stuff. The new Baby Mouse is orange for Halloween. And I loved the pink bike her husband gave her. She told us that her husband loves it when she researches materials for her books, because one of the things she likes to do is try out the food from the region, country or time period her book is placed in. She tried out some dishes from the historical Boston Jane series. She thought her attempt was disgusting, but her husband chowed it down. She wanted to try out of the Italian dishes from her Italian side of her family (read Penny From Heaven), but her aunts don't share well, let alone write anything down.

Sigh. Those pesky, old-school Italian aunts of ours!

Random online Babymouse sightings, plus CUPCAKES!

I came across (via Google News Alerts) a couple of Babymouse mentions online.

First up is a library Reader of the Week recognized by the Albert Lea (Minnesota) Tribune:


That's Claire Jones, about whom we learn the following:

Claire Jones is 9 years old and will be in fourth grade at Lakeview School. Her parents are Brady and Wendy Jones and she has two brothers Ben, 13, and Daniel, 11. She has a dog named Buddy and her favorite things to do are paint and shop. Her favorite book is “Camp Babymouse” by Jennifer and Matthew Holm. She likes the whole series because the books are funny and have good stories in them and she likes the authors.

Go, Claire! (And if she has a dog named "Buddy," wait until she gets to Babymouse: Puppy Love!)

Then, I came across the Cooking With The Kids blog, the authors of which are participating in the latest Web meme (read: chain letter):

We've Been Tagged!
How funny - our mom tagged us! Even though she already knows all this stuff about us, she thought it would be nice if we shared this with our readers. And we thought she was the only one that read our blog!

Here are the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up

Cooking Kid Sabrina noted, as one of her random facts:

3. Babymouse series books are my favorite - the books are about a middle-school aged mouse named "Babymouse", and she loves cupcakes, surfing and reading.

Cooking with the Kids finally led me to the site Cupcake Hero. It's like Iron Chef, only with cupcakes. Check out the dee-lish-looking recipes.

The Milton Canadian Champion tells kids to get lost

... um, in a book, that is.

The article, "Get your child lost in a good book," recommends, among many other books, the Babymouse series:

... Graphic novels have become very popular, and there are many different series available now in both the children's and YP areas. Some popular titles include: Megaman NT Warrior; Hardy Boys, Undercover Brothers; Nancy Drew, Girl Detective; Bone by Jeff Smith, Amelia Rules by Jimmy Gownley, Babymouse by Jennifer Holm and Goosebumps Graphix by R. L. Stine.

Guess where I'm going ... the airport!

Since I see that the Kidlitosphere Conference is taking place a scant few miles from my house, I guess I can't help but go. To be honest, it'll be a nice change to go to the airport without a 12-hour transcontinental travel day involved.

Jennifer Holm on Diane Rehm Show 07/23/2008

Attention NPR-ophiles:

My sister, Jenni, is going to be a guest on the Diane Rehm Show next Wednesday, July 23, 2008 (11am ET). The segment is about Anne of Green Gables; Jenni, who wrote an introduction to an edition of Anne of Avonlea some years ago, will be discussing how the book influenced her own writing.

The Akron Suburbanite recommends Babymouse for summer reading

Erika Irwin of the Ohio-based paper The Akron Suburbanite mentions Babymouse as a good choice for summer reading in her article, "A summer fun reading list:"

... A new trend in books that may help reluctant readers is the graphic novel. Children’s librarian Jen Welsh at the Lake Branch of Stark County Library has a display of the books available. Many books such as the Babysitters Club by Ann M. Matthews and Goosebumps by R.L. Stine are now available in comic book form. A new series entitled Baby Mouse by Jennifer Holm and Matthew Holm is also very appealing.

New Cover--Babymouse: The Musical!

Well, it's up on Amazon, so I might as well show it off here—the cover for book #10, Babymouse: The Musical!

Filthy, dirty, disease carriers!

It's been a good day in Babymouse world. There are a number of cool things happening on a number of fronts, none of which I can really talk about at this point, unfortunately. But the thing that was just the capper, was the post from Library Voice entitled, "What’s the Deal with all these mice?" It made me laugh harder than I have in a while.

A mom, whose 9-year-old daughter is a regular at my branch, came up to the Children’s Information Desk recently and threw down several books on my desk: a few Babymouse volumes and MouseGuard: Fall 1152. After drawing my undivided attention by slamming said books on my desktop, she looked at me expectantly. Keep in mind that this is a relatively nice, mild-mannered woman who generally speaks softly and has never had an issue with me or the library in the past.

“Can I help you?” I ask.

“Yes, I just wanted to point something out to you that I think is a problem. What’s the deal with all these mice?”

“…..”

“I mean, not to be a troublemaker or anything, but I really don’t think that it’s appropriate to have so many children’s books with mouse characters. Mickey Mouse- he’s okay. That’s one thing. But all the rest of these mice? I mean, it’s not right. Kids will get the wrong idea. They are flithy, dirty, disease carriers.”

“…..”

“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. A child will see a mouse at home run across the floor and they might go to pick it up or play with it. Because they think it’s cute. Because of all this.” [gesturing to the pile of Babymouse books].

The moral of the story: Don't touch Babymouse.



(Not even a little hug??)

UPDATE: More coverage over at lisachellman.com.

Camp Babymouse, Iowa, and the Great American Backyard Campout

Apparently, the State of Iowa decided to include Camp Babymouse on the book list for the Great American Backyard Campout being held on June 28, 2008. (Glad to know someone in Iowa is able to think about something as mundane and fun as camping amid the current flooding mess.)

Thanks, Iowa!

Scripps Howard: 'Babymouse' a superhero kids can identify with

Jenni gave a talk at the Children's Book Guild of Washington, D.C., last week, and one Karen MacPherson was in attendance. She wrote up a little piece for Scripps Howard News Service entitled, "'Babymouse' a superhero kids can identify with":

As the only girl in a household of boys, Jennifer Holm grew up learning how to spit, climb trees and play kickball.

Like her four brothers, she also read lots of comics, especially those starring superheroes like Superman and Batman. But she often wondered why there were no women superheroes except for Wonder Woman.

"I just couldn't identify with her," Holm said. "It might have been her bustier (a type of push-up bra top) -- or maybe it was the go-go boots."

I think it's cute that she has to identify what a "bustier" is for readers.

Oh, Madonna, where have you gone??

UPDATE: This story also made it to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Stuff I Like: Primitive Cartoons (Part 1)

I'm sure some cartoonists might find the label "primitive" insulting, but I mean no disrespect. How about "outsider art" instead? (Yes, it's true. I wrote about many museum exhibitions at the American Folk Art Museum during my tenure at Country Living Magazine. I know the lingo. Of course "outsider art" usually means "created by semi-homeless 85-year-old crazy person who lives in a tin shack in the bayou and fills every square inch of free space on a painting with insane pseudo-religious rantings that look like they came off of a Dr. Bronner's soap label." So maybe you do want "primitive" instead.)

At any rate, I like cartoons that look like they were either scribbled on the back of a napkin or drawn by a five-year old, but are still funny. That last part's important. Otherwise you end up with stuff like Home Movies. Oog. That animation's a headache without any funny.

Today's primitive feature: Kate Beaton's comics. She does lots of historical strips:


... and also funny autobiographical ones:

Stuff I like: Comic strip mashups/parodies

I read a lot of Garfield comics while growing up. (I read a lot of comic strips in general.) I recently ran across the delightful Web application Garkov (no, it has nothing to do with Flash Gordon, my first assumption), Josh Millard's exercise in applying some complex mathematics to Garfield speech balloons. Reloading the Garkov page randomly generates new strips, such as this:


or this:


Sometimes these Garkovs are very straightforward or could almost be real strips. But the best are the ones that read like Zen koans. (Most of the Garkovs, naturally, are nonsense.)

From Millard's page, I followed a link to a strip I had heard of and then forgotten about: Garfield Minus Garfield. Pretty straightforward: the guy takes all of the animals out of the Garfield strips, leaving you with a view into the lonely, mentally unstable life of bachelor Jon Arbuckle. Quite funny (and touching).




(I just like that he's talking to his salad.)

This all reminds me of the now-defunct Dysfunctional Family Circus, which had to be taken down once it came to the attention of Bil Keane. Made me laugh a great deal back before the dot-com bust.

Babymouse by Iris

I'm just finally getting around to posting a piece of fan art, by the young (and multilingual) Iris:


Dodgeball!

(Here's a link back to her mom's blog.)

Babymouse sighted in Singapore

Came across a blog whose owners made a trip to Bishan Library in Singapore and snapped the following photos of their young reader:

Joni and her 'Camp Babymouse' book.

Marty Gray #100

Whew! That's it! The entire run of Marty Gray. Sometime in the future, if I can figure out how to force Blogger to do it, I'll create a single page with all of these entries in chronological order.

Better TLA than never

I just finally found illustrator Jarrett Krosoczka's blog, thanks to the Fuse #8 blogroll. Jarrett is a smart lad who takes pictures at events. I don't. So I immediately went to Jarrett's Web site right after the Texas Library Assn. conference, of course, to find the pics ... but I was either too tired or too slow-witted to find the link to his blog.

At any rate, Jarrett took photos of our TLA hijinks.

(I'm the tall skinny one on the left, as you can tell if you click and zoom in on the name tag.)

Matt and I are going to retire from illustrating and start our own cruise ship for librarians where we entertain as lounge singers. Who's in?

By the way, I'm TOTALLY behind the whole children's-librarian-cruise-ship idea. If they can have Star Trek vacation cruises, I'm sure we can get a kidlit cruise together. (I have an excellent singing voice for our lounge act, by the way.) I think we'd have to do the Alaska route and avoid international waters, though—I remember how lean attendance at the Toronto 2007 IRA conference was, thanks in great part to the fact that many school districts are not allowed to spend money sending their faculty to conferences outside the USA. (U.S. Virgin Islands? Hawaii?)

Marty Gray #099

Marty Gray #098

Marty Gray #097

Marty Gray #096